Solar radiation triggers robust seasonal vitamin D production in the skin; vitamin D deficiency is common in the winter, and activated vitamin D,
1,25(OH)2D, a steroid hormone, has profound effects on human immunity. 1,25(OH)2D acts as an immune system modulator, preventing excessive expression
of inflammatory cytokines and increasing the 'oxidative burst' potential of macrophages.

Perhaps most importantly, it dramatically stimulates the expression of potent anti-microbial peptides, which exist in neutrophils, monocytes, natural
killer cells, and in epithelial cells lining the respiratory tract where they play a major role in protecting the lung from infection.

Volunteers inoculated with live attenuated influenza virus are more likely to develop fever and serological evidence of an immune response in the
winter. Vitamin D deficiency predisposes children to respiratory infections.

Ultraviolet radiation (either from artificial sources or from sunlight) reduces the incidence of viral respiratory infections, as does cod liver oil
(which contains vitamin D). An interventional study showed that vitamin D reduces the incidence of respiratory infections in children. We conclude
that vitamin D, or lack of it, may be Hope-Simpson's 'seasonal stimulus'.

Very intyeresting hypo. I personally am one of those type that don't even get a cough let alone a flu bug. All my life I have worked outside and I
don't where a hat(want to keep what hair I still have) or sunscreen. The only time I can remember getting sick was some 20yrs ago when I ate some of
my own cooking.
And I've always boasted to others that it was attributed to my past healthy lifestyle of drinking, smoking, partying and eating anything that is
high in poly unsaturated fat! This would be a very simple explanation with everybody being scared of the sunrays why in the last, say 20-30yrs, there
has been such a dramatic increase in people coming down with viruses, especially low level ones. Ask your folks if there were all therse 'pademics'
going on in their days.

It is interesting research, to be sure. However, while Vitamin D may aid in the prevention or onset of influenza, it should only be taken as a
supplementary precaution because it doesn't actually do anything to address the root problem of influenza adaptive veracity.

Vitamin D should always be adjuvant treatment in patients with serious illnesses and never replace standard treatment. Theoretically, pharmacological
doses of vitamin D (2,000 IU per kg per day for three days) may produce enough of the naturally occurring antibiotic cathelicidin to cure common viral
respiratory infections, such as influenza and the common cold, but such a theory awaits further science.

This paper came out about a month after the one you cited, co-written by J.J. Cannell - whom also co-authored the paper you cited. Basically he's
saying the evidence isn't all there yet, and research is still on-going and unproven as of yet to determine just what the limits to the effectiveness
of Vitamin D treatment are.

Fortunately, we've found a Achilles heel shared with pretty much all influenza strains - the conserved proteins, especially the M2 protein and it's
sub-structure the M2e. Conserved proteins like this are very hard to change and evolve without fundamentally wrecking the delicate protein machinery
which allows the virus to replicate. Target these, and we have ourselves a universal Flu vaccine. There's a problem though.

Influenza carries large globular clusters called haemagglutinin at their head. This haemagglutinin acts as a decoy to our immune system, adapting to
them (these structures can mutate and adapt rapidly with really no effect to the flu virus itself) instead of the actual virus proteins. This is why
we we keep having to make new vaccines each year, to keep up with the haemagglutinin modifications.

What we've been able to do now is strip the haemagglutinin from the virus and breed dead/deactivated strains which only express the specific proteins
like M2 we want our antibodies to target. Using this method, we can train our immune systems to ignore the globular structures and attack the most
delicate and vital machinery of the virus - providing a double-whammy effect which strips Influenza of it's diversionary shielding as well as target
the parts of it which are the hardest to change without crippling the virus - preventing adaptation.

To flip the coin again, however, according to New Scientist - it's development and research has been slowed, since it's only passed phase I clinical
trials in people - and Swine Flu is an immediate threat that is potentially too dangerous to stall out for in hopes of a universal vaccine. So too
little, too late for this outbreak, but if the further trials turn out as successful as the Phase I has - hopefully this won't be much of an issue in
the future.

Influenza vaccines used today are strain specific and need to be adapted every year to try and match the antigenicity of the virus strains that are
predicted to cause the next epidemic. The strain specificity of the next pandemic is unpredictable. An attractive alternative approach would be to use
a vaccine that matches multiple influenza virus strains, including multiple subtypes. In this review, we focus on the development and clinical
potential of a vaccine that is based on the conserved ectodomain of matrix protein 2 (M2) of influenza A virus. Since 1999, a number of studies have
demonstrated protection against influenza A virus challenge in animal models using chemical or genetic M2 external domain (M2e) fusion constructs.
More recently, Phase I clinical studies have been conducted with M2e vaccine candidates, demonstrating their safety and immunogenicity in humans.
Ultimately, and possibly in the near future, efficacy studies in humans should provide proof that this novel vaccine concept can mitigate epidemic and
even pandemic influenza A virus infections. ~ Expert Rev Vaccines. 2009 Apr;8(4):499-508.

Ask your folks if there were all therse 'pademics' going on in their days.

Specify please. Do you mean Cholera? Influenza? Typhus? Smallpox? Measles? Tuberculosis? Malaria? Yellow fever? Or any number of others?

The Spanish Flu Pandemic in the early 20th century has been estimated to be the caused of about 50~80 million deaths world-wide. The H2N2 "Asian
Flu" of the late 50's killed an estimated 2 million worldwide. The last previous declared pandemic before Swine Flu was the "Hong Kong" flu of the
late 60s which killed about 38,000 est. A bit more recently there was the outbreak of AIDS which still kills about 2 million per year globally. It
actually emerged in the 1900's though, but didn't take off globally until the 70's/80's. Tuberculosis used to be rampant in America and Europe,
but is now mostly a scourge of second and third world nations. Roughly 1/3rd of the world population is infected with the M. tuberculosis strain
causing about 1.5 million deaths annually - especially high mortality rates exist in those countries already ravaged by AIDS. Two of my uncles on my
mother's side had TB as kids, and my grandfather on my dad's side had to have a lung removed (on the kitchen table, lol) as a youth when it
collapsed due to complications of TB.

I could go on if you wish. Though it is important to note that increased global trade, travel, and commerce have heightened the risk of pandemics
considerably as new mutations and contact with diseases for which most of the world has no immunity can be carried around the globe in tight quarters
where infectious transmission is far more likely, literally overnight. The most famous pandemic in history is probably the Bubonic Plague (Black
Death) was so devastating that it scarred our cultural psyches so deep - many still consider it to it as the "Mother of all plagues", and it was
similarly propagated by global trade. The rats from the trading vessels and their fleas were the vectors which spread the plague across the known
world - from central Asia eastward. It claimed an estimated 200 million lives over several waves before sanitation methods finally slowed it's
progress. Not to mention the tragic deaths of millions of tribal peoples around the globe when exposed to common and minor diseases for us, but for
which they had no immunity against.

It IS a danger, and SHOULD be taken seriously. I am a bit concerned over rampant speculation and fear mongering provoking a "boy who cried wolf"
scenario.. and am not sure if the call to "pandemic" was warranted *just yet* for this latest H1N1 outbreak. Inversely, that is no reason to treat
the potential for the situation lightly. We don't always run to the basements of our homes when the Tornado warnings come on TV... but you'd be a
damned fool not to clear the path to shelter or to ignore the changes in wind and weather outside.

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